Remarks by John RitchDirector General, World Nuclear Association
International Conference on the Protection of the Environment from the Effects of Ionizing Radiation Stockholm7 October 2003
Distinguished colleagues:
I welcome the opportunity to address this important conference to offer a nuclear industry perspective on environmental protection from the effects of ionising radiation.
The World Nuclear Association is the global industrial organisation that seeks to promote the peaceful worldwide use of nuclear power as a sustainable energy resource for the coming centuries. Our membership includes some 115 companies, institutes and agencies in 32 countries. Together WNA members represent over 90% of the non-generation side of the world nuclear industry, and over 80% of nuclear electricity generation outside the United States.
The WNA is concerned with all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including mining, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, electricity generation and the safe disposition of spent fuel. Our functions are two-fold: to foster unity and technical cooperation within the industry; and to represent the industry in the trans-national arena.
One month ago, we acted in partnership with the IAEA, the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD and the World Association of Nuclear Operators to inaugurate the new World Nuclear University. Headquartered in London, the WNU is a network of leading institutions of nuclear education and research in some 25 countries.
The WNU will foster cooperation among these institutions of learning. Its ambitious aim will be to strengthen education in all aspects of nuclear technology and to build a larger and internationally qualified professional work force to support the expanded use of these valuable technologies worldwide in the challenging century we have just begun.
Guided by that robust outlook concerning the future of nuclear technology, we welcome the deliberative examination now in progress on the question of how best to protect the environment from anthropogenic radiological effects. We see such an examination as both desirable and inevitable in an age of ever-increasing environmental awareness and concern.
Indeed, as to the context in which we now find ourselves, I submit that we should view the opening years of this century as marking the onset of an entirely new era - in which the geopolitical struggles of past decades will be eclipsed by a wholly different form of challenge. If the 20th century was an age of war and cold war, the monumental task we face in the century ahead is to reconcile humankind's ever more intrusive presence on this planet with the preservation of the potentially fragile biospheric conditions that enabled civilisation to evolve.
As we shape our national and international strategies, it will clearly not suffice simply to act in the name of environmentalism. We must do so with intellectual and scientific rigour, for our challenge today is one of navigation. We must preserve our planetary environment while struggling to meet the urgent needs of a huge and growing global population.
As we look ahead, it seems no more than a prudent appraisal to say that humankind has never faced a greater challenge than to reconcile the twin global imperatives of human need and biospheric preservation.
The magnitude of this challenge is reflected in the simple but daunting statistics that define the problem of climate change.
In the next 50 years, as global population grows from 6 to 9 billion, the rate of world energy consumption will double or even triple. In just this narrow 50-year period alone, humankind will use more energy than in all previous history combined.
Today, despite much rhetoric and diplomacy, the global rate of CO2 emissions - now 25 billion tonnes a year, or 800 tonnes a second - continues to rise. By mid-century the greenhouse gas concentration is likely to exceed twice the pre-industrial level.
To stabilise greenhouse gases - even at a dangerously higher level - global emissions must be cut, within the next 50 years, by at least 50%.
Developing countries such as China and India, with priority on human needs, will inevitably emit more greenhouse gases. Thus, to avoid climate catastrophe, the already industrialised countries must cut their own emissions by 75% and lead the world in a radical transformation to clean energy technologies.
It is an irony of our age - and it is fast becoming a tragic irony - that so many citizens and organisations most concerned about the clean-energy problem are fixated on myths, dogmas and sheer fantasies regarding the solution.
In fact, nuclear power is the quintessential sustainable development technology:
In the realm of reality, projections by the International Energy Agency (in the public sector) and the World Energy Council (in the private sector) point unambiguously to the same conclusion - that our need for clean energy on a colossal scale cannot conceivably be met without a sharply increased use of nuclear power.
The goal of sustainable development is also served by a wide variety of other nuclear technologies that are crucially important in worldwide efforts to promote agricultural productivity, eradicate virulent pests, protect livestock health, preserve food, develop water resources, enhance human nutrition, improve medical diagnosis and treatment, and advance environmental science.
It is with a strong belief in the constructive - indeed indispensable - role of nuclear technology in the 21st century that we assess the question of protecting the environment from the adverse effects of anthropogenic ionising radiation. Our posture is simply stated:
As this conference commences, we offer these messages:
As this question is relatively new to the international agenda, we believe it is essential that these respected organisations operate in tandem to ensure a clear and coherent direction for future work and the coordination of relevant scientific activities.
We accept that this framework may not be deemed adequate in some specific situations where humans are not present, but we also believe that this gap is more conceptual than real.
A classic case in point concerns the notorious practices of the government of the former Soviet Union, which, over a period of three decades, used the Kara Sea as a dumpsite for nuclear waste that included six nuclear submarine reactors containing spent fuel.
In the 1990's the IAEA conducted a full-scale assessment of the radiological impact of this practice. While the conclusions concerning short- and long-term radiological effects were far from alarming, the dumping itself certainly was.
Even so, it is by no means obvious that this example of recklessness demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the traditional premise that protecting humans will protect the environment - if that premise is understood correctly.
That premise rests on certain assumptions, among them that even minor exposure to radiation must be justified as a necessary consequence of achieving a sound purpose.
In this case, available means of treating this waste cautiously were simply ignored - at the risk of current environmental damage and potential future human damage - simply for the short-term expedient of saving money.
This action clearly fell afoul of the simple common-sense principle - which may perhaps need to be enshrined - that available means of waste management should always be used as an alternative to any action that might damage a non-human population or an eco-system or that might unnecessarily threaten individual human beings in the distant future.
Our third message is to affirm the nuclear industry's recognition of the supreme importance of environmental stewardship and the industry's continuing commitment to operating in accord with high environmental standards.
This commitment is expressed strongly and unequivocally in the Charter of Ethics of the World Nuclear Association, which you will find prominently displayed on the WNA website. It pledges all of our member companies to abide by the full array international standards and laws designed to render the use of nuclear technology both effective and benign.
As to the radiological impact of the nuclear industry, it is always useful to remind ourselves that about 90% of the radiation people receive comes from nature and about 10% from medical practice. The percentage from nuclear energy and other non-medical nuclear technologies requires the use of a decimal point. In the vicinity of many nuclear sites, and power plants in particular, it is difficult to detect any variation from normal background levels of radioactivity.
Even for sites that historically have had the most significant discharges, experience with the currently available biota dose assessment methodologies indicates that doses are significantly below levels at which any deleterious effects to populations of marine biota might be expected.
Here I refer you to the results of a comprehensive case study assessing marine biota doses arising from the radioactive sea discharges of Cogema's facility at La Hague. Tomorrow morning, my colleague Sylvain Saint-Pierre will present and analyse this study.
Our fourth message concerns the criteria that any future system of protection should fulfil. We submit the following:
A. It must be capable of simple and practical application;
B. It should not require blanket application across sites where it is evident that there will be negligible environmental impact;
C. It should be focused instead on those exceptional situations where there is a high potential environmental impact - typically, those situations where humans are excluded; and finally
D. It should be designed to protect species, populations and the ecosystem - not single plants or animals - and based on a scientific framework oriented to these goals.
Having offered those four messages, let me reiterate that the nuclear industry intends to engage constructively in any process designed to ensure and to enhance genuine environmental protection.
Recognising that the shaping of any sound system must be science-based, we will do all possible to bring to bear both valuable expertise and relevant data.
Meanwhile, we will contribute to the ongoing global environmental debate in all of its aspects.
The essence of that debate concerns the best means of achieving global sustainable development. We believe that nuclear technology must be seen and supported as a central instrument of any sound strategy for the successful pursuit of this goal.
With each passing day, the industry is continuing to build on its 11,000 reactor-years of experience - and on a superb record of operational safety and of human and environmental protection.
We are pleased to participate in any process that joins good science and good judgment to strengthen that protection and the public's confidence in it.